


The Edge of Darkness

by Elizabeth (anghraine)



Series: The Edge of Darkness [1]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Brother-Sister Relationships, Child Abuse, Childhood, Gen, Genderswap, Rule 63, Siblings, Villains
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-24
Updated: 2013-02-21
Packaged: 2017-11-16 22:59:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/544777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anghraine/pseuds/Elizabeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yakone was a terrible father to his son, and a worse one to his daughter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Although genderswap is my very favourite trope and I would happily write always-a-girl AUs in every fandom I run across (working on that!), this one was mostly inspired by the sudden flood of Rule 63!Tarrlok over at [tumblr](http://anghraine.tumblr.com/post/32507870403/i-adore-genderswap-on-general-principle-but). This one particularly seized my imagination because it seems likely to have a significant effect on the storyline without flying completely off the rails.

Noatak was three years old when his sister was born. He could never remember anything about those first few years, though, and as a small boy refused to believe they had ever occurred.

Taraka was younger, yes. His little sister, always his little sister, needing him to guide and protect her. However, some part of him could never accept the logical conclusion, that there had once been a time without Taraka, that he had lived for three years in a world where she simply did not exist. Even much later, when everything was different, Taraka never entirely left his thoughts. How could she? He had abandoned her to save himself, and so spent the rest of his life trying to save everyone else. Fighting for the oppressed of Republic City might begin to make up for failing his own sister.

It was almost funny. He looked down at hundreds of rapt faces and saw only Taraka, gazing at him in adoration, or cringing under their father’s iron hand. Meanwhile, Taraka herself sat in her office and plotted his destruction.

He didn’t blame her. Not as such. _He_ had left her to Yakone’s tender mercies, left her to bear their father’s vengeance and cruelty alone until she broke. He would have turned out no better had he stayed: probably rather worse.

He collected every scrap of information he could find about her. She was thirty-five now, a tall woman with a sly smile and cold eyes, her girlish prettiness long since replaced by a hard, arrogant beauty. No more than a few traces of his sister remained in Councilwoman Taraka; when he initially stumbled across her photograph in the paper, he recognized her more by her beaded tails, still swinging over her shoulders, then her features. Had he first encountered her in person and not in print, he would not have known her but for her blood.

She had become another Yakone, he concluded regretfully, though smoother than their father could ever have dreamed of being. Over the radio, her speeches were articulate and eloquent, each word falling precisely into place, her voice warm, rich, persuasive. In fact, she sounded more like Amon than Yakone, and he didn’t know whether to be amused or horrified by it.

Also like Amon, and unlike Yakone, she used her bending as a tool and not the sole foundation of her influence. It had undoubtedly been necessary to her initial rise to power; of course it would have been necessary, here. However, he had no doubt that her control over the Council and, through it, the city, owed far more to her personal charisma and ambition than to waterbending.

Behind his mask, his lips twitched into a small, painful smile. She was a monster, his baby sister, but at least she was a magnificent one.

Then he looked at his hands, his waterbender’s hands.

At least they both were.

* * *

He thought they had been pleasant children, as children went. Taraka was, certainly: a good-natured girl, always looking up to him. She burst into tears or gales of laughter with about equal ease, ran after him on her short chubby legs, clung to his hand or his leggings. She could be a little petulant; she’d been a sickly baby and was always rather delicate - though perhaps he’d only thought so. As a brother, Noatak was not just bossy but fussy; his parents laughingly called him _little mother._

Before. Before waterbending. Nobody had laughed much afterwards.

But he fussed over her then, too, helped her with her bending, felt more protective of her than ever. He couldn’t understand why he got so jittery when their parents separated them, their mother pulling Taraka aside to teach her healing. It was one of the few things she ever insisted upon: there’d been a loud argument, full of words like _custom_ and _tradition_ and _culture_ , but Yakone had finally agreed, as long as it didn’t slow her progress in her other lessons. Noatak made sure it didn’t.

Noatak hadn’t been able to understand, either, why he kept feeling an urge to place himself between Taraka and their father. At waterbending, of course, but also at dinner, out walking, any time the three of them occupied the same area. More and more often, he gave in to it. In retrospect, he’d been ridiculously obtuse, but then, he’d only been—he counted back—eight. Taraka, therefore, would have been five.

Five.

Within the year, they advanced far enough that their father revealed his identity and began to teach them bloodbending. Taraka hated it from the start, with a violent, unreasoning passion that Noatak couldn’t talk her out of.

_And I - I enjoyed it._

He felt more sickened by the remembered pleasure in bending than what he’d done with it. Taraka’s instincts had been better than his own by far. Did she still hate her bending? She’d grown into a domineering, power-hungry woman, but no whiff of scandal had ever touched her. If she was bloodbending, nobody had the slightest suspicion. But then, she already had the city in the palm of her hand. She didn’t need it, did she?

He almost envied her.

 

Their childhood did not end with their initiation into torture. Noatak was nine, Taraka six. They were children still, however brutalized. No: bending, rather than cutting childhood short, stretched it out, turned it into a vast wasteland with no end in sight. The children’s days continued on, all ice and blood and misery, and achingly slow.

The next year they were ten and seven, moving from rodents to small predators. Then eleven and eight, twelve and nine - that was the year they bloodbent under half and crescent moons, conquering the new moon a few months later. Thirteen and ten. Fourteen and eleven. By then, each could bend entire herds at any time, Noatak with his mind alone.

They hadn’t drifted apart, exactly. If anything, they were more constantly together than before. Without any dependency on the moon, the “hunting trips” had grown more and more frequent; the siblings were now full-fledged bloodbenders and very little short of master waterbenders. Their five years of secrecy and power seemed to ring about them, binding them together and dividing them from everyone else. The other children in the village were positively alien to them; they wouldn’t have associated with them even had Yakone not forbidden it.

At the same time, there was little of their old laughing camaraderie. Noatak had retreated so deep within himself that only bloodbending and danger - especially danger to Taraka - could make him feel more than half-alive. He felt a confused distaste for their once awe-inspiring father, and only mildly affectionate contempt for their mother, too weak and blind to see what was happening right under her nose. She’d even stopped fighting for Taraka’s healing lessons, destroying the last scrap of respect he’d had for her. As for Taraka herself -

That was more complicated. Taraka alone understood, had endured something of what he had. Not all. From the first, Noatak had done everything he could to distract their father from her. Though he relished his power, it was for Taraka that he constantly pushed himself towards perfection, drawing the full weight of Yakone’s expectations onto his own shoulders.

Yakone still terrorized her, of course. At eleven, Taraka was somber-eyed and highly-strung, thoroughly cowed by their father. But with Noatak taking up so much of his attention, Yakone inflicted far less on her than he would have otherwise.

Noatak loved her. Yet he resented her, too. Yakone’s vengeance pressed down on him, day and night, occupying his thoughts and haunting his dreams. He slept poorly, often leaving the tent he and his sister shared to crouch at the edge of the nearby cliff, wrestling with the reality of their purpose. It was up to him. Yakone said so often enough, and Noatak would have known without being told.

How could Taraka exact vengeance on an unsuspecting city when she still needed her brother to protect her? She was a _bloodbender_ , the greatest in the world after him. She should have been more than able to look after herself. And if she had been, they could have shared the burden between them. If only she were stronger: less fragile, he thought, and a chilly, remote part of him added, less _weak -_

He pushed the thought away. It wasn’t fair, and he prided himself on always, always being fair. The three years between them had never been wider. He was fourteen, almost a man. Taraka was a little girl. And he was her older brother. It was his job to look after her. His duty, more than any vengeance of their father’s.

Besides, while she didn’t have the stomach for revenge, and had to be prodded even into bloodbending, he knew she did what she could. He couldn’t get a cut on his fingertip without Taraka rushing over to heal it, and - well, he still said the wrong thing to their father, sometimes. The pain never lasted long, with Taraka there.

She’d fuss over him even after he was healed. He … he didn’t need her or anything, and it was his own fault for being so stupid, but after something like that happened, it was a comfort to have someone completely on his side. Their mother never even noticed; Taraka healed his bruises and fixed his hair and clothes, saying little even at her most indignant. Occasionally, he had to keep her from confronting their father - _Taraka_ , who could scarcely confront her own reflection. More often, she just wrapped her arms around him and pressed her face into his shoulder.

If it happened during the day, Takara spent the rest of that day marching determinedly after him, following him everywhere he went, while he said he supposed he didn’t mind that much. When it happened late at night, she stayed curled up against him, and Noatak just gave a long-suffering sigh and made sure his blankets were properly tucked around her, then let his hand rest on her shoulder or hair. He slept a little better that way.

She never cried. Neither of them did, any more than they laughed.

He couldn’t do nearly as much for her, when it happened the other way around. He stayed with her while she healed herself, his silence awkward rather than soothing, and finally reminded her that she was three years younger, and so far beyond anyone _her_ age that it was almost funny. Undoubtedly she would master psychic bloodbending by the time she was eighteen or nineteen - well before Yakone had. She didn’t seem particularly reassured.

Noatak continued to slip off by himself, leaning his chin on his knees while his thoughts chased each other around his brain. Taraka was never far behind. Sometimes, he truly longed to be alone, and then she kept her distance. Most of the time, he just wanted to get away, and she watched over him, the flow of water in her body thrumming a low, soothing beat inside his skull. She didn’t say anything, though, and walked so softly that he couldn’t even hear the tread of her boots.

He never said so, but he liked having her there. She might not be able to help much when it came to avenging their father, but her devotion calmed his frantic brain a little. He would never be alone; Taraka would follow him anywhere. He even, rather guiltily, liked the way she looked at him when he turned to go back home, her eyes wide and anxious.

On one of the occasions when he actually did want solitude, he hurried away, past his usual cliff. He felt no hint of Taraka. He was tired of her nervous solicitude and impatient with her frailty: it was better to stay away when he was like this. He leaned against a tall rock, so distracted by his own thoughts that he didn’t notice an approaching pack of wolves - hungry wolves - until he heard their growls. In his alarm, he tripped over a half-buried boulder, scraping his face on the rough edges. That didn’t prevent him from smashing their bodies into the ground, of course, but it wasn’t very impressive. He was glad nobody had been there to see it.

He revised his opinion when he tried to stand. He could, but pain darted through his right ankle and up his leg. He sat down, slumping back against the standing rock, and wishing very much that he had brought Taraka with him, humiliation or no humiliation. However, before he’d done anything but think wistfully of cool healing water and worried eyes, she was there: first blood and heart and lungs, then a distant figure running towards him.

Taraka, usually soft-hearted, didn’t spare a glance for the dead wolves. “Noatak! Noatak, are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” he muttered.

Her panicked expression faded.

“Don’t be stupid.” Taraka knelt beside him. She drew a strand of water from the snow, cupped it in her hand, then held it against his face. The stinging faded. “Where else?”

Noatak sighed and pointed to his ankle. “I don’t know if you can - ” She was already laying her hand over the injured joints, the pain sharpening. He caught his breath; then it, too, vanished. Taraka rocked back on her heels and considered him with that measuring look she got sometimes. Noatak didn’t much like it.

“I didn’t hear you,” he said, collapsing all his powers of observation into the word. “How’d you know I was here?”

Taraka smoothly shifted to sitting cross-legged, her hands neatly folded. She stared down at them. “I followed you.”

“Yeah, I’d figured that out,” he said sharply. _“Why didn’t I hear you?”_

She didn’t look up. “If I don’t get too close, you can’t.”

It was the quiet assurance in her voice that gave her away. She’d done this before. She had a very clear idea of what constituted too close.

Noatak narrowed his eyes at her. “How close is that?”

“I don’t know. Further than I can see,” mumbled Taraka. She tangled her fingers together. “I have to follow your tracks to find you.”

Noatak didn’t know whether he should be outraged, or impressed at his own range and at the sheer amount of effort she must have put into measuring it, without giving herself away. How many times through the years had he called out irritably, _I know you’re there, Taraka_ \- ? How many times hadn’t he?

“You’ve been experimenting on me?”

At that, she finally lifted her eyes. “No! I mean - I had a sort of idea of it - I just - I didn’t want you to get mad at me, but I have to make sure you’re okay!”

“Why wouldn’t I be okay?” He waved at the wolves.

Taraka let out an exasperated puff of air. “It’s not about bending. It’s - look, you get these weird moods sometimes. You just run off without thinking, or … you don’t think things through when you’re like that, you know you don’t. If I’m around, I can talk to you, but I can tell when you don’t want me there. I get worried, okay? It’s not a big deal.”

“You’re … trying to _protect_ me?” He struggled just to wrap his mind around it.

She looked sheepish.

“That’s my job, little sister,” he said, but without any heat. He got to his feet, helping her up and dusting the snow off her clothes, then looked at her thoughtfully. “How can you tell?”

“What?”

“When I want to be alone.”

Taraka shrugged. “I don’t know.” Her lips curved into a small, unconvincing smile, her eyes as somber as ever. “Mom says I’m a people person.”

 _I didn’t want you to get mad at me_ , she’d said. He wasn’t, very often, but their father - she’d had plenty of practice at tiptoeing around Yakone’s moods, figuring out when to try and talk him down, when to stay away, when there was nothing to do but fall into obedience. She said the wrong thing a lot less than Noatak did, for all that it was so much worse when she did.

People person. Right.

“Come on,” he said, flicking more snow off her shoulder. He had to fight the urge to keep his hand there. She was little, but not that little. “Let’s go home.”

He strode past her, back towards the village, and Taraka trudged after him.


	2. Chapter 2

Another year came and went. The usual travails of that age would have been the least of their problems, but in this fortune tossed a few table scraps their way. Puberty was kind to them. Noatak had grown gradually through his teenage years, transitioning smoothly from childhood to adolescence. For him, that year was little different than the ones that had come before; he grew a bit taller, continued to repress the occasional spark of interest in the girls around the village, and his voice went a bit deeper.

Taraka, on the other hand, didn’t so much hit puberty as crash into it. She had been very much a child the year before—short, stout, and vaguely androgynous, with a high sweet voice. Within a few months, she had grown breasts, hips, and at least four inches. Much of her youthful chubbiness melted away. Even her hair accelerated its growth, the beaded ropes reaching almost to her waist.

At fifteen and twelve, then, the siblings were decidedly good-looking: tall for their ages and slender, with clear brown skin, high cheekbones, and striking, fine-boned features. Oddly enough, they did not look much alike. Oh, there was colouring—their eyes the same icy blue, their hair the same glossy brown-black, their complexions within a shade of each other. On a second glance, too, they shared many of the same features, but the baby fat still hanging about Taraka’s face weakened them almost beyond recognition. She was soft, a pretty girl with round, dimpled cheeks and a gentle voice, as soft as Noatak was sharp. Few saw anything but the most passing resemblance between them.

Their father certainly did not. More the fool him, Noatak would think many years later, looking down at a sister grown harder and sharper than he had ever been. At the time, though, he knew only that his instincts were clamouring at him: something was wrong. Even the way their father had mentioned the dissimilarity between them was wrong—casually, in front of their mother, an easy smile on his face. He’d stopped hitting Taraka altogether.

On one occasion, when her bloodbending was even more unenthusiastic than usual, he seemed on the point of striking her across the face. Noatak tensed, ready to spring to his sister’s defense—but then _Yakone_ stopped himself, turning the aborted blow into a caress of her cheek.

“Mustn’t ruin the pretty face, hm?” he said, tipping her chin up. Taraka stared at the ground. Noatak regarded Yakone with still amorphous, but considerably greater, alarm. “Noatak, it’s your turn.”

A few weeks afterwards, Noatak returned to find his mother outside the main tent, hanging clothes up to dry and humming to herself. She cheerfully informed him that his father and sister were in the tent; Noatak, not even pretending at normalcy, rushed inside and found Taraka standing with her arms outstretched. Yakone’s hands rested on her shoulders and he was slowly turning her around, looking up and down her body.

“Yes—you’ll do,” Yakone said, more to himself than Taraka, who just seemed bewildered.

Noatak cleared his throat loudly.

“Ah, there you are, my boy,” said their father, turning to face him with perfect unconcern. After a few brief inquiries Yakone left, and Taraka all but collapsed onto a bench.

“What was that?” Noatak demanded.

“I don’t know!” She crossed her arms over her chest, shoulders bowed. “He said something about how I’m all grown-up now—I’m not, Mom just had to let out my tunic again—and told me to turn around so he could look at me properly. Then you came in.” She bit her lip. “He’s been strange every since—”

“Ever since the last hunting trip.” He gave her a cold look. “Since you haven’t even pretended to be interested in improving.”

Her manner shifted from defensive to sulky, shoulders straightening and mouth twitching towards a pout. “Well, I’m not. I’ll never be you.”

“Not if you barely drag yourself through it, you won’t.”

She rested one foot on the bench and wrapped her arms about her knee, leaning her cheek on her leg. It was almost exactly the same posture Noatak fell into when he slipped away to brood over the future.

“There’s no point,” she said sullenly. “I can … hunt down anything he tells me to. As many as he wants. Any time of day, any time in the month. It doesn’t matter. Nothing’s ever good enough for him. So why should I care about getting better, anyway?”

Noatak glared at her. “Because it’s _Dad._ He can always get worse! He’s going to do something, I can tell.”

They didn’t have long to wait. A few weeks later, at dinner, Yakone chatted lightly with his wife, ranging from an entirely fictitious account of their latest hunting trip, to news from the village, to the doings of a friend who had just returned from a three-year-long journey around the Earth Kingdom.

“He must be very glad to be home,” said Sura. “Though I imagine he’ll find it rather dull, after Ba Sing Se. Does he find it very different from before?”

“No—though he was shocked to see how much Noatak and Taraka had grown,” Yakone said.

Their mother smiled at them. “They have, haven’t they? Though they’re very well-grown for their age. Nika’s boys are shorter than both of them, and—”

“In fact,” said Yakone, “I think you should see about arranging a marriage for Taraka.”

There was a moment of utter silence, broken only by Taraka’s chopsticks clattering to the floor. Noatak’s jaw dropped.

“A—a marriage?” said Sura, looking very nearly as stunned as her children. “An arranged marriage? It’s not usually done, this far from the capital.”

“But I know how much you care about tradition, dear,” Yakone said.

Noatak’s eyes darted between his parents. Yakone was still smiling, paying no attention to either him or Taraka; Sura just seemed bemused. At Noatak’s side, Taraka was frozen in horror. For once, he couldn’t blame her.

“—perfectly capable,” Yakone was saying. “And I’m not getting any younger. I’d like to see my grandchildren grow up.”

Grandchildren.

Finally, Noatak understood. Taraka had the power of a bloodbender, but not the spirit, the will to dominate. If she wouldn’t bloodbend without being forced into it, she was no good for revenge. But she still had Yakone’s blood in her veins. Her children would probably be bloodbenders, especially if she managed to attract a powerful waterbender to father them. _Better not risk your pretty face—_ If she started young enough, Yakone could train her children up, like Noatak and Taraka before them.

Noatak swallowed. Though it would be many years before he objected to any bending, much less his own, he knew even then that the way Yakone had taught them—the way Yakone had done everything—it wasn’t right. It wasn’t—no. Not again. Not Taraka’s children, his nieces and nephews, his nieces and nephews who had no business existing for years and years, because Taraka was twelve. Twelve, and that’s why their father had looked at her like that. It wasn’t the vague fear that Noatak hadn’t dared even name, he’d been appraising her as—as breeding stock. _Taraka._

Noatak felt sick. He pushed his food away.

Sura, breaking off her discussion with Yakone, looked worriedly at him. “Are you feeling all right, sweetheart?”

He mumbled an excuse in her general direction, then seized Taraka’s wrist and marched out, dragging her after him. Taraka, unusually enough, didn’t utter a word of complaint; her arm was limp and nerveless under his hand. He had no doubt where her sudden docility had come from.

Noatak didn’t stop until they were almost out of sight of the tents, snow falling more and more thickly through the air. The moon shone down on them, three-quarters full and waxing; it was a small, unnecessary comfort.

He dropped his sister’s arm as though it burned him, and whirled to face her.

“Now do you see?” he demanded.

Taraka nodded, even the gesture small and frightened. She hadn’t bothered to put her hood up; snow clung to her hair and eyelashes, and melted down her face. Impatiently, Noatak tugged the hood over her head.

“What am I going to do?” she said, very quietly. For once, there was little hope in her gaze; it was the first time he could remember her ever looking at him without absolute conviction that he would protect her. This was not at all how he’d wanted it to happen.

Noatak grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “You’re going to bloodbend.”

“But I do already,” Taraka protested. “I told you, it’s never good enough. How’s that—”

“Shut up and _listen to me._ ” He paced a few feet away, locking his hands behind his back. “Power isn’t the problem, all right? It’s not enough just to be able to bloodbend.” He looked over his shoulder at her. “You have to want control. You have to want something else to obey you.”

“But I don’t,” she said despairingly.

“Oh, come on.” He turned the rest of the way around, looking straight down at her. “You’ve never wished you could just make Dad stop? Not even when he hurts you?” Noatak paused. “Not even when he hurts me?”

She caught her breath.

“You do it in your own way, you know,” he pressed on. “You lie all the time to try and make him do what you want.”

“That’s not the same! I don’t force him!”

“Exactly. It’s not about force,” said Noatak. He straightened and held out his hands, pulling a narrow stream of water out of the ice, twirling it between his fingers, then holding his left hand palm-down, the right palm-up and spreading them further apart, heating the water into steam. He dropped his hands. “That’s fire—our opposite. We’re waterbenders. You act like bloodbending is something completely separate, but it’s not. It’s waterbending. And water’s the element of change, not power.”

She managed to look both blank and stubborn. Noatak sighed, and snagged some water out of the air, suspending it just above his fingers.

“Come here.”

Taraka approached unhesitatingly; for some obscure reason that he didn’t bother examining too closely, he was relieved that she wasn’t afraid of him. Noatak passed the little globe of water to her, and Taraka twitched her fingers, turning it into a lazily looping circle.

“We’re waterbenders,” he said again, staring at the loop. “We have to flow with whatever comes our way, to be ready to adapt at a moment’s notice. We use the power that’s already there and influence the course it takes. We control the moment of change. It’s not just in bending. Look at Dad. When he needs to be someone different, he is. No matter what happens, he finds some way to make it work for him. He couldn’t beat either of us in a real fight, he can’t even bend, but he still controls us, with our power.” Noatak’s mouth twisted into a distant approximation of a smile. “He must have been a great waterbender.”

“You sound like—” She darted a quick glance up.

“I don’t like him. I don’t respect him hardly at all. But I admire people being good at things.” The not-smile faded, but his eyes crinkled a little at the corners. “Like how you’re a good liar.”

She flushed.

“I’ve seen you do it. You change your story to make it work for whatever’s going on right now, change your voice and your expression and how you’re standing. You don’t do it all the time and it doesn’t always work, but—” Noatak gave her a knowing look— “it feels great when it does, doesn’t it? When you get the better of him just by being smarter and faster? When you make him do what you want and he thinks it was all his own idea?”

“Ye-es,” she admitted, only half-guiltily, shifting the looping water back into a perfect sphere. “That’s—he, he’s … you know what he’s like. It’s all I have! Besides, he’s scared me so much, of course it’s nice to win for once.”

“And wolves have never scared you?”

Taraka winced.

“Right, I bet I’d do great against a whole pack of them without my bending.”

She looked uncomfortable, but repeated, “It’s not the same.”

Noatak shrugged. “Maybe. But in the end, it’s still waterbending. You’re not taking over their minds, you’re controlling the way they move—the way they _change._ You’re using their momentum against them, guiding the flow of water in them the same way you’d do it with other waterbending. And if you don’t really want control, it won’t go any better than it would with other waterbending.” He poked at the water globe, which shivered. Taraka scowled and the water reformed its shape. “See? That’s what you need, not more power.”

She frowned, thinking it over.

“It hurts them.”

“Not as much as having a baby would hurt you,” he said brutally. “It’s worse when you’re just a kid yourself, you know. You might _die._ ”

Taraka’s eyes went enormous.

“Don’t you see? You have to get this. There’s no other way.” He took a deep breath. “You have to remember how it feels when you get someone to do what you want just by talking to them, how much you like feeling that clever and that in control, how much you like winning. Hang on to it when you’re bloodbending. And remember that if you give up, he’ll win.”

“But I don’t have time! I have to convince him I’m worth training right away—maybe if I just talk to—”

“No! Listen,” Noatak said. “This is what’s going to happen. I’m going to find you targets and we’re going to practice until you’ve got some smidgen of the proper spirit, five times a day if we have to.” Taraka, seeming torn between horror and gratitude, opened her mouth to speak. He jabbed a finger at her shoulder. “And you just better have it by the next hunting trip.”

He was true to his word. Though they didn’t practice five times a day, it was usually more than once, Noatak excusing them to their oblivious mother. Initially, Taraka was almost as dismayed as before. Noatak did his best to bully her out of it, liberally mixing lurid (and almost entirely inaccurate) descriptions of her likely fate with cool praise of her abilities. Taraka, to her credit, seemed to be trying to express something other than distaste. To help, he tracked down the least sympathetic animals he could find. Several days later, after a few reminders of how unpleasant it would be to bring triplet bloodbenders into the world, and various misdeeds of their father’s, and _that’s firebender talk, Taraka,_ she managed to fling away a group of elephantrats with a distinct air of satisfaction.

“But it’s rats,” she said. “Mangy rats. I think they might be diseased.”

In general, indifference was the most she could handle. It was, nevertheless, an improvement over disgust or horror. Every time she looked as if she might relapse into her old habits, he grabbed her arm and snapped, “It’s them or you.”

Even Noatak hated what he was doing. Whatever his other failings as a brother, browbeating Taraka had always been Yakone’s domain. Sure, Noatak was doing it to _protect_ her from Yakone, as he’d always tried to protect her, but he was still deliberately terrorizing her. Worse, she didn’t even blame him; she understood what he was doing, and however frightened she got, she never seemed afraid of him. When it came time for her to bloodbend before their father again, she even looked to him for reassurance. She hadn’t done that in years.

_Just like lying_ , he mouthed.

Taraka set her jaw and held herself loose, but ready. She still didn’t stand with the easy confidence of a bloodbender, but nobody could say she wasn’t a proper waterbender. There was a look of fierce determination on her face. As soon as the day’s catch—some outraged beardogs—began to gallop towards her, she darted a quick glance at Yakone. Her eyes narrowed and she lifted her hands, seizing the beardogs and floating their whimpering bodies this way and that, before forcing them to fall down before her. She didn’t look like she was enjoying it, but she didn’t look sulky, either; she just looked angry.

Yakone, for his part, was hardly impressed—neither sibling had expected that—but he did seem surprised. That night, when he and Noatak were stirring the fire while Taraka prepared the meat, Yakone looked thoughtfully at his son.

“You been talking sense into your sister?”

At that moment, Noatak’s ambivalent feelings towards his father settled into painful clarity. I hate you, he thought. _I hate you, I hate you, **I hate you.**_

“I’ve been trying,” Noatak said, not daring to lift his eyes from the fire, and despised himself for even pretending that he was on Yakone’s side.

Taraka kept it up through the entire trip, though her resolve was clearly breaking by the end. Yakone didn’t seem to notice anything, and Noatak had a strong suspicion that he and Taraka both were imagining that each animal they bloodbent was their father. For the first time in his life, he seriously considered doing it for real. They could bloodbend Yakone, run away together, live their lives however they wanted. Would Taraka—? Probably not, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t need her to help, anyway. Yakone couldn’t bend: what could he do to stop them? Nothing. Only they were stopping themselves. For all Noatak’s power, he’d never dared confront his father. But if he even looked like he might hurt Taraka again—

Well.

When they returned home, Taraka sat stiffly beside Noatak at dinner, her eyes unfocused, speaking only in monosyllables. She seemed hardly to notice what she put in her mouth. After her chores were finished and their parents had retreated to their tent, she all but staggered away. With a distinct sense of déjà vu, Noatak sighed and followed her tracks.

He found her below his favourite cliff, kneeling on the snow and gagging.

“Taraka!” He ran over to her, but she hadn’t been sick. She didn’t move, just glanced up through the strands of hair falling over her face, one hand over her mouth. Her light blue eyes weren’t cold, but—faded, somehow. She looked as if the stiff winds might blow her over.

“I …” Noatak couldn’t think of anything to say. He wasn’t sorry for what he’d done, not if it had saved her. Just sorry that he’d had to do it. He thought of all the times he’d wished something would make her grow up, force her to carry her share—he was just glad now that he’d never said so. “Taraka—”

She sat back and wiped her mouth, still looking exhausted, almost wrecked. Like a puppet with its strings cut.

“Yes?” she said flatly.

“Four years,” Noatak told her.

Finally, a flicker of emotion crossed her face: confusion. Her brows drew together.

“Four years and you’ll be sixteen,” said Noatak, and though he kept his voice even, something hungry and desperate ran under it. “Of age. Then we can leave. We can go to Republic City and—”

“—avenge Dad?”

Noatak swallowed. He should be able to tell if anybody else were there, but he looked nervously over his shoulder anyway. He couldn’t help dropping his voice. “No. Not if we don’t want to.”

Taraka caught her breath. “What?”

“Dad won’t be there. Once we leave, we don’t haveto do what he wants. We’ll still be together, but we’ll be free.” He absently bent some snow into spikes, then back again. “We’re smart and we’re fast and we’re probably the greatest waterbenders in the world. There’s nothing we won’t be able to do and there’s nothing he’ll be able to do about it.”

Taraka’s eyes went wide and hopeful, her lips parting. It was the first time in a week that she’d looked like herself. Then she frowned. “But we can’t leave without Mom.”

“Well, you can stay if you want,” Noatak snapped. She flinched. “Besides,” he added, gentling his voice, “d’you think Dad’s going to let us stay here until she dies? _He’ll_ send us away. We just have to wait and be ready.”

“Like waterbending,” said Taraka, a smile trembling on her lips.

“Just like waterbending,” he agreed.

She hesitated, then reached forward to touch his wrist. “I’m sorry. It’s just—sometimes it feels like we’re never going to get out. We’ll just be here, forever.”

Noatak looked down at her slim hand, dark and fragile against the vibrant blue of his sleeve. The hand shook a little; she hadn’t bothered to put on any mittens. Taraka didn’t think things through, either, when she got carried away.

Normally, he’d have shaken the hand off, impatient and uncomfortable with that sort of affection. He loved her, but in a half-sacrificing, half-angry way, where he protected her and resented her and worried about her and terrified her into proving her worth. He’d have easily died for her if she’d needed him to; he hadn’t hugged her in years. But her touch was very light, and apologetic rather than pitying, and he had a bizarre urge to turn his wrist and let her slip her hand into his, like she had when they were little.

He did nothing of the kind, of course, but he did tolerate the affectionate brush of her fingers.

“It’s a long time,” he said. “A lot can happen in four years. But it’s not forever.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: There are two explanations for the ages here.
> 
> The Watsonian reason: Yakone’s expectations of an unsatisfactory daughter are lower and the pace of their training slowed down slightly, while Noatak is even more intensely protective of a younger sister (rearing in Northern Water Tribe traditions + genuinely vulnerable, woobietastic baby sister = RAWR).
> 
> The ~~actual~~ Doylist reason: I habitually ignore everything that isn’t onscreen, and I had the distinct impression that each of the backstory moments took place at a different age. So I assumed that Noatak mastering psychic bloodbending happened at least a year or two before he ran away, and he was ~16, Tarrlok ~13, in the final scene. That’s when I wrote this part. Oops?


	3. Chapter 3

Taraka continued to struggle with bloodbending, but Noatak kept prodding at her and she kept working at it. She had none of Yakone’s glee—but then, even Noatak didn’t. For him, bloodbending was a minor thrill, pride and satisfaction in his own control. For Taraka, anger had to be good enough, and hers seemed to be growing.

She smoothly concocted stories to justify their frequent absences to their father, who only much noticed Noatak’s. Yakone regarded any suggestion of autonomy on his son’s part as a dangerous rebellion to be crushed. Taraka, though, had a distinct knack for talking him down and seemed to be getting better at it, her face sweet and guileless except for her hard eyes. When Yakone turned away, subsiding into mutters, Taraka’s mouth curled into a smile, half-exultant and half-smug: exactly what Noatak felt when he was bloodbending. Now and then, she looked the same when she bloodbent—she’d surreptitiously glance at Yakone as if she were seriously considering poisoning his dinner, then turn to face the animals, her eyes lowered. Actually closing her eyes, Noatak had warned her, would be a touch too obvious, even for Yakone.

Their father, of course, was hardly satisfied by her progress, but he was sufficiently encouraged by it to continue her training. He stopped talking about grandchildren, and the question of marriage was, to the relief of everyone, quietly dropped.

The siblings had little opportunity to relish their victory. Within a few months, Yakone declared that they had both demonstrated enough mastery of basic bloodbending to train in the next level. Noatak and Taraka hadn’t realized there was any other bloodbending; they did their best to look politely interested rather than blank (Noatak) or horrified (Taraka). Noatak did feel a little anticipation at the idea of some new technique he might explore, but it quickly faded when Yakone provided details.

As waterbenders, they had the power not only to move water, but to shape it and to shift it from one state to another. Freeze it, heat it, evaporate it. The same principles, Yakone said, applied to bloodbending. They could crush organs, boil blood.

Noatak, hardly overburdened by scruples, quailed. Taraka looked like she might faint. Neither could formulate a response.

“It’s rarely useful except as a threat,” Yakone allowed, “but if you ever need to kill quickly and quietly, you’ll be grateful you can do it without much effort.”

Noatak opened his mouth, then shut it again. He only recovered himself when Yakone led them towards their prey, and Taraka let out a small moan. Noatak grabbed her arm, digging his fingers into it as tightly as he could.

“Don’t,” he hissed. _Don’t let him hear you. Don’t let him see any weakness. Don’t give him any reason—_

_“Noatak.”_ It was all she said, his name a hopeless prayer in her mouth. Noatak looked away, into the cave their father was leading them towards.

“It’s—it’s just rats,” he said helplessly. Even he felt sick.

When his time came, he forced himself to concentrate on the rats’ dimly-felt organs, crushing them as quickly as he could. He still shut his eyes right before he did it. Taraka was shaking so badly that her rats took fifteen long seconds to die, squealing all the while.

That night, Noatak dreamed of blood, actual blood spilling over his hands and soaking his furs, and the two of them walking through the village and killing everyone they met, and animals’ screams that turned into Taraka’s. He woke up with his heart still hammering against his ribs, his face clammy with sweat. Their father was sleeping peacefully; Taraka was gone.

After a brief moment of panic, Noatak caught sight of her at the edge of the camp. She was sitting with her knees pulled up, rocking a little back and forth. He walked over and sat beside her, imitating her position.

Taraka looked over at him. “Today was _awful._ ”

“Yes,” said Noatak, swallowing bile. “It was.”

She seemed slightly relieved, then miserable again. She leaned her arms on her legs and rested her head on them.

“Four more years,” she said.

They stared ahead blankly. Four more years of _this_ , he thought, even his mental voice bleak.

Suddenly Noatak had no difficulty at all in wrapping his arms around her and burying his face in her hair. His eyes were hot and itchy and her hair clung uncomfortably to his cheek, but he didn’t move. Distantly, he thought that his grip on Taraka’s back had to be hurting her. If it was, she didn’t seem to care, but just hung on to his waist. She was shaking, making small gasping noises that she tried to muffle in his shoulder— _crying_ , and only then did he realize, with some bemusement, that he was too.

Noatak lifted his head, scrubbing at his cheeks.

“We’re not murderers, okay?” he whispered. “We’re not going to kill any people, ever.”

Taraka detached herself from his parka and looked up at him. “Promise?”

Noatak nodded firmly. He thought, _I’d like to kill **Dad**_ —but it wasn’t true and he knew it. He didn’t want to kill anyone. And Taraka, he thought, would sooner kill _herself_.

The following months were some of the worst of their entire lives—and even once his life took a turn for the consistently miserable, he never rescinded that assessment. They killed, and hated themselves, and hated their father still more, and for the first time, Noatak thought his bending more curse than blessing. At home, their mother fretted over them; she couldn’t understand why they picked at their food, and when they did try to eat a full meal, she found both of them throwing up afterwards. They promptly pretended to be sick and, working together, very carefully gave themselves slight fevers. Even the two days’ respite it bought them was worth it.

In a small mercy, Yakone—while far from understanding—seemed at least to tolerate their squeamishness rather more readily than usual. Even he took little pleasure from personally murdering anyone, and admitted that he’d considered it a failure of sorts to be driven to it. Once they had proven their abilities on various animals, he required nothing more: certainly not the mass slaughters that they had both dreaded. In retrospect, Noatak supposed that Yakone was too dedicated a hunter to really consider decimating entire populations.

Before long, the times when he required only basic bloodbending were neither a thrill nor an ordeal, but simply a relief for both of them. Noatak dreamed of escape. He knew that if not for Taraka, he would have fled long ago.

Nevertheless, those months, too, passed away. Taraka turned thirteen, Noatak sixteen. He was now of age. Yakone began to make sounds about sending him away: to the capital, he said, or even further abroad. Noatak was immensely gifted, after all; he should have a chance to try his fortune someplace where his talents would be appreciated. Omashu or Ba Sing Se, perhaps. Or Republic City.

When the siblings were alone, Taraka said, “Maybe you _should_ go.” She stood straight and tall as she spoke; she’d grown another three inches, outstripping their mother. “You could get away, at least.”

Noatak just glared at her. He was all the angrier because he’d already thought of it, and was far more tempted by the idea than he let on. He could clear the way for her, write letters— _no._ She was barely holding up as it was. They had to do it together, like they’d always planned.

Taraka exhaled. “I guess I’ll have to talk to Dad, then.”

He didn’t hear what Taraka told their father; he didn’t need to, since she’d prepared it ahead of time and they’d actually practiced the conversation. Taraka was to suggest, very tentatively, that Noatak needed her help to properly carry out Yakone’s revenge. Not so much with the bending, of course, they all knew he was by far the superior bender—though he could use someone to watch his back, and who better than another bloodbender?—but the little things, he didn’t think of _details_ , and there was so much to distract him in the city. Some things he’d let slip even gave her the idea that avenging their father might not be his primary concern at the moment. Of course, when Taraka came of age, she’d follow after him and do her best to keep him focused, but—

Yakone had, himself, repeatedly warned Noatak that he would need total commitment to his plans to have a hope of carrying them out. Noatak, though dedicated enough in his way, had a longstanding tendency to get distracted halfway through his tasks and wander off, leaving his chores half-finished behind him. It was Taraka who either dragged him back or did his work for him, darkly informing him of the favour he now owed her. Yakone—Taraka gloatingly told her brother—pretended to endure rather than listen to his daughter’s earnest, stammering speech, but later he agreed with Sura that there was no need to rush things.

That night, Noatak and Taraka crept out of the village—not Noatak slipping away and Taraka following, or vice-versa, but the two of them leaving together. The full moon hung high above them, lighting their path. It was the middle of the night and their parents had long since gone to sleep. Still, they hadn’t dared talk openly in their vicinity, and didn’t want to worry about waking them up, anyway. He and Taraka had caught a few hours’ sleep, then woken themselves at midnight, heading to the recess under Noatak’s cliff. He flopped back against the snow, arms crossed above his head; Taraka sat down, stretching one leg out and pulling the other up, draping her arms over her knee.

“—so then Mom said maybe next year or the one after that, and _he_ told her that he’d feel better about it if you had me looking after you.”

“I’m a delicate snowflake,” said Noatak lazily.

Taraka grinned down at him, still smug.

“And they just said all this with you right there?” he asked.

“I might have overheard them.”

Noatak lifted his eyebrows. “Overheard.”

Taraka just tossed her hair and looked up at the moon, her usual solemnity creeping back over her face. Noatak followed her gaze. It had been years since either of them had been weak enough to submit to the moon’s whims, either depending on the boost from the full moon or faltering under a new one. But they were still affected by the moon’s power, their bending waxing and waning with it just like every other waterbender’s. The brilliant moonlight irradiated him, soaking into his blood, his bending soaring within him until his body seemed little more than a container for it. He could feel his body, too, his and Taraka’s both, feel the veins and vessels and organs and muscles, all in exquisite detail.

Taraka was strong enough: she must feel something of that, too. He turned to look at her, sight and bloodbending blurring together. Taraka-as-he-saw-her fit neatly over Taraka-as-he-sensed-her—different but the same, like reflections in a broken mirror. She set her chin on her arms and looked back at him, her eyes dreamy.

“What are we going to do when we get to Republic City?”

“I don’t know,” said Noatak, unconcerned. “I don’t know much about Republic City, so there’s not much to prepare for. Everything I thought of before—that’s not going to happen now, anyway. We’ll have to learn everything we can on the way there. We’ll need a place to live, too, food and clothes and things.”

“Money,” said Taraka.

“Dad says benders can always find work somewhere.”

Taraka looked thoughtful. “ _Legal_ work?”

“Probably not. But we’ll find something. You won’t have any trouble, anyway, since you can heal.” His voice took on a lecturing tone. “The important thing is to be ready for anything, and take advantage of every opportunity we can find.”

Taraka gave a decided nod of her head. “All right.”

They talked a little more, in the same sleepy, drawling voices, not saying anything of consequence. Noatak knew they should get up and return to their tent. Tomorrow would be a nightmare if Yakone woke up to find them missing, and afterwards he’d undoubtedly keep a far closer eye on them. But lying here was so pleasant and comfortable: the overhanging earth broke most of the wind, and Noatak instinctively kept them warm. Best of all, their parents were a safe distance from them, not only out of earshot but out of sight. Unusually contented, he found himself drifting into a half-doze.

Taraka was staring at the moon again. Noatak, his mind meandering between mundane senses and bending and dreams, turned his head in her direction, resting his cheek on one arm. His vision was clouded with sleep, the images before him indistinct; in the place of his baby sister, he saw, dimly, a different girl, one nearly grown, and unfamiliar. Her features were half-obscured by the hair falling out of her loose braid and everything was blurry anyway, but he could make out a gentle mouth, and strong, sharply angled brows that seemed oddly out of place on her soft face. With a sigh, she dropped her gaze back to the earth, to him; her eyes were wide and a clear light blue, like—

Like his. Yes, that was important. She was—she was not a stranger. His sluggish mind seemed to be prodding at itself, and he narrowed his eyes. The unfamiliar shapes resolved into everyday ones. His eyes, yes. His nose, his thick dark hair, his … his sister? Yes. His sister. Taraka.

Taraka looked at him uncertainly. “Is something wrong?” She pushed the stray hair out of her face.

“I—” Noatak scowled up at the moon. For as much thought as he’d given to Taraka coming of age, he’d never thought of her growing up. Not really, just—just getting taller and, maybe, a little more capable. She’d always be younger, of course, always his duty, always his little sister. But other people, they’d see that other Taraka, and they’d see her as just another pretty girl from the Water Tribe. A flash of alarm woke him the rest of the way.

“We can’t tell people we’re from the Northern Water Tribe when we leave.”

“Uh,” said Taraka, sounding awkward, but no more. “What does that … why not?”

He kept his eyes on the sky. “Anybody who knows anything about us will know you’d normally be ready to get married. We don’t want people bothering you.”

“Oh! But what about you? You’ll be plenty old enough too.”

Noatak hesitated, thinking. “People don’t bother men as much,” he said finally, and darted a glance at her. 

She was flushed with annoyance. “It’s not fair!”

Her tone was little short of a childish whine. It was true, though. They’d never been treated equally, by their father or mother or anyone else. Taraka still got odd looks when they walked back through the village with their game; other girls had started avoiding her well before Yakone had forbidden his children from speaking to—well, anyone. And as horrible as Yakone was, if not for his plans, Taraka would never have learned anything other than healing. Their mother hadn’t. Sura would never have made a bloodbender, but she was perfectly competent for what she was. She _could_ have been trained as a proper waterbender.

And Noatak had nothing to fear from strange women. He would only marry if he wanted to (which seemed very unlikely). It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right.

Someday, they would change that, he and Taraka. They would make everything fair.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tarrlok is the one that’s said to be based on Azula, and it’s not hard to see why, but there’s obviously quite a lot of her in Noatak, too. I like to imagine that extends beyond prodigy-turned-monster to awkward paranoid turtleduck.

In recent years, Yakone hadn’t bothered to personally continue Noatak and Taraka’s training in traditional waterbending. They were accomplished enough already, as long as they kept practicing; any further training would only distract them from bloodbending. But Taraka retained a strong affinity for their element—not as blood or even ice, but in its most basic form. Noatak, if anything, felt a still deeper connection to water. Just moving through the forms brought him a measure of peace that nothing else did.

He tried to keep practicing—with Taraka, when possible, but even when she could not be spared, he would make his way to their old training area and work through his stances. They’d been so busy lately, though, that he’d had little opportunity for it.

Noatak shifted into position, starting with gathering the water from everything in his immediate vicinity, then pulling it into a stream, looping it over and around him. The stream trailed smoothly after the sweeps of his fingers and arms. Perfect. He stretched it into a whip, whirling it around him, slicing neatly through a small stone, and snapping it at a curious bird, which squawked and fled. Perfect. He escalated through the liquid forms, collecting more and more water, whirling it around him in a loop that he expanded into a spinning, roaring shield—perfect as far as he could tell, but he needed Taraka to test it for him. He split the shield into two massive waves, which rose high above him, curving forward and then back at his command. He held them up for as long as he could, then twisted them into gigantic versions of the loops he’d started out with. Finally, he lowered them almost to the ground, letting the water fall the remaining few inches as snow.

Noatak returned to his original position, hands flat in front of him, and breathed out. He was very calm.

A drop of water dripped on his nose, then another. Noatak tensed, rubbing the water away. His forehead was damp, too. Not sweat: a few drops from the waves had escaped his control, sprinkling down on his face. It’d been almost perfect.

His hands clenched into fists.

“That’s _not good enough,_ ” he snarled at himself.

“Well, I thought it was pretty good.”

Noatak spun around to find himself staring at a vaguely familiar girl of his own age. What was wrong with him? He hadn’t even noticed there was an intruder! He was the best bloodbender ever—why did this keep happening?

The girl smiled at him. She had large, straight teeth, a turned-up nose, and wide cheeks. After a moment’s consideration, he decided that she was prettyish, in an undignified way. He’d never seen her up close before.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

She laughed. “I live here. Well, just over there.” She waved her hand towards the opposite side of the village.

“I know that. I wasn’t talking about the whole village.”

“Oh, right here?” Her voice went higher, blood flooding her cheeks. “I, um, well. I’m a waterbender too.”

“Okay? What does that—”

“But not like you. You’re really talented!”

“I know,” said Noatak. Trying be fair, he added, “My sister is, too.”

“Oh, I forgot about your sister,” the girl said, looking disconcerted.

Noatak’s eyes narrowed.

“I mean—I didn’t forget you had a sister, just … things. She’s Takorra, right?”

“Taraka,” Noatak said. “Maybe you’d like to challenge her to a duel.”

The girl giggled nervously. “Oh, I don’t think so. I don’t know any duelling kind of stuff. Can she do all the things you just did?”

Noatak thought back to the forms he had practiced. “Yes.”

“Wow,” she said. “My dad would never teach me anything like that. I like healing, though.”

“So does Taraka,” said Noatak. “Why did you say you were here?”

“Oh, I was just walking around,” she said, with a spectacularly unconvincing smile. She wasn’t just a worse _waterbender_ than Taraka. “And I saw you waterbending. It was really impressive, so I stayed and watched. I’ve … I’ve seen you around. Places. The village, I mean.”

She didn’t seem very articulate, either. Noatak was relieved to sense an approaching body—one too small to be Yakone’s.

“I’ve lived here my whole life, so it’d be strange if you hadn’t,” he said.

“Well, you’re not here very much, and nobody seems to know you. I had to ask three people just to find out your name.”

Noatak stared. She seemed more and more suspicious by the minute. “You were asking people about me?”

The girl turned bright red. So she was up to something. Fortunately, before she could fabricate another unconvincing story, Taraka came running down the hill. Noatak and his companion were facing a little away, but there was no missing her approach; somehow, the girl managed it. She started, gave a small shriek, and clapped a hand over her heart.

Taraka blinked, startled. Then, with an unimpressed shrug, she turned towards Noatak, clearly dismissing the other girl.

“Noatak, sorry I’m late,” she said. “I had to help skin the seal leopard.”

“Seal leopard? That’ll be good,” said Noatak. For quite the first time in his life, he wished he knew a little less about waterbending and a little more about how to make people leave. Taraka was better at that kind of thing, anyway. He sent her a pleading glance.

“Yeah. Mom says to tell you not to eat all the jerky this time, though,” she said breezily.

“Um,” the stranger said.

Taraka deigned to look at her, imbuing the slight movement of her head with an air of supreme condescension. “Oh, sorry, I thought you were going. Did you need something?”

“I was talking to Noatak about his bending, actually,” the girl said.

Taraka frowned. “We’re not supposed to talk to strangers. Isn’t that right, brother?”

“Yes!” he said, eagerly latching onto the excuse. “Our father will be angry if he finds you here.”

The girl looked far too disappointed for passing interest in another waterbender. What did she know? And what didn’t she know, that she was so desperate to find out more? It wasn’t just his imagination, either. Taraka’s face was plastered over with a poisonously sweet look that he’d never seen her direct at anyone but Yakone.

“But I’m not a stranger!” the stranger protested. “I’ve lived here for years and years. Tak—Taraka threw snow in my face when we were little girls and your mother dragged her away by the ear. You were there, too.” In a faintly injured tone, she added, “You laughed.”

“Oh, you don’t have to be offended. We laughed at everything back then,” said Taraka, stepping forward to stand beside and slightly in front of Noatak. “I think I remember, but—sorry, what was your name?”

“Zianka,” said the girl, disgruntled.

It didn’t sound familiar, but Noatak thought he sort of remembered what Zianka was talking about. He had some dim memory, anyway, of a prissy girl his age trying to boss Taraka around and getting a faceful of snow for her trouble. It really had been funny. He looked at his sister speculatively. It would still be funny.

“Well, enough that you didn’t know my name and I didn’t know yours,” said Noatak, bored. “That counts. You’d better go before he finds you.”

“And we’re not really supposed to talk to neighbours, either,” Taraka added.

Zianka was scowling. “Your dad sounds weird,” she said.

“He is,” Taraka said fervently.

Zianka turned to leave, then paused, and glanced back over her shoulder at Noatak. She smiled a little. “Those were some great waterbending moves. If you can get away, maybe you could teach me what you know. Privately.”

He understood. She wanted to get him alone. Was she planning an ambush? Maybe she suspected, and thought she could force him to reveal his bloodbending that way. She was probably planning to blackmail him later on. If he refused outright, it would only convince her that he was hiding something.

“Well—um—”

“Dad would probably kill him if he did,” said Taraka cheerfully. Then her eyes went wide and she pointed; a tall, gaunt figure—Yakone—was ducking inside the tent. “Noatak, he’s here!”

Noatak’s pretended alarm promptly turned genuine. “You’ve got to go right now,” he snapped, pushing at Zianka’s back. “Seriously, hurry, before he sees you!”

“Fine,” said Zianka, and ran off. Noatak and Taraka watched her leave, their faces expressionless, but their pale blue eyes colder than usual. Once the strange girl was safely out of sight, Noatak glanced down at his sister. Taraka was still standing a little in front of him, tall and deliberately relaxed—standing, in fact, in the next thing to a waterbending stance. She was smiling again, too, but it wasn’t the aggressively bright smile she had directed at Zianka: just a slight tug at the corner of her mouth, unmistakably smug.

Noatak’s own mouth twitched. “What was it going to be? Ice-claws? Daggers? A razor-whip?”

“Just a water-whip, she’s not dangerous,” Taraka said automatically, then flushed. She backed up to her usual place just behind him. “I mean, if she wouldn’t leave on her own. Just to scare her away. Dad—”

Noatak studied her. She was still red, but the faint smirk hadn’t quite left her face, either. He couldn’t quite believe that she thought him that pathetic. What kind of weakling needed his little sister to defend him? Not just covering for him or something like that, but Taraka, protecting him with bending? He was stronger than she’d ever be! It was stupid, and insulting, and—and he should be angry. For some reason, though, he couldn’t bring himself to care. Or—he did, but not—

“I don’t need you to protect me,” he said, for what felt like the dozenth time. What even went on in her mind, that “I must protect my incredibly powerful older brother” was actually a thought that crossed it? Repeatedly?

“Okay,” said Taraka amiably.

Her face shone with sincerity. It was the same face she usually presented to Yakone, and he definitely should have been angry about that. But he couldn’t seem to manage it. Worse: somehow, it was almost … endearing? Just Taraka being Taraka. Well, he reminded himself, there was no point in losing his temper over it. Getting angry at Taraka for lying was about as productive as getting angry at the sun for rising in the east.

Noatak forced himself to scowl at her. “Listen, Taraka. I’m not your property.”

“I know that!” He thought her earnest look might be real, this time.

“And I especially don’t need you to scare off some girl from the village who can’t even bend properly, even if she was spying on us.”

“Spying,” Taraka repeated.

Noatak’s eyebrows went up. “Well, what else?”

She actually snickered. “Seriously? You can’t tell?”

“What are you talking about?”

“She li-ikes you,” Taraka sang out.

“Don’t be stupid.”

“I’m not the one being stupid,” she said, tossing her hair. Noatak’s eyes narrowed and he instantly melted a pile of snow and splashed it in her direction. Taraka, still grinning, danced out of the way. “Think about it. If she came to spy on you because she’s guessed we’re bloodbenders, shouldn’t she be just as glad to spy on me? She definitely didn’t want me there.”

“But she said she’d been asking questions—”

“About Dad? Me? Or just you?” Taraka slanted him a sly glance. “What sorts of questions, anyway?”

“She said she’d been asking my name, and—well, I don’t know what else,” said Noatak.

Taraka just looked at him.

“Oh, fine,” he said crossly, thinking through the bizarre conversation. That actually did make … a bit more sense. He could feel his cheeks starting to heat. “But if you weren’t worried about her spying, then why—”

Taraka grimaced. “I don’t like her, that’s all.” She stared at the ground, apparently fascinated by the snow underfoot.

“You’re jealous?” said Noatak, not quite able to keep the incredulity out of his voice. Their father had preferred Noatak all their lives—even in the beginning, though of course it’d gotten worse in the last few years. Yakone had been constantly, unfavourably comparing Taraka to him for almost as long, practically holding him up to her as an idol. Yet she’d only ever seemed grateful that Noatak stood between her and the full glare of Yakone’s demands. Jealousy was about the only emotion he hadn’t seen from her. It just wasn’t … her.

“No,” snapped Taraka, though her skin was reddening. “I just don’t—who does she think she is, anyway, asking for private lessons? She can’t even waterbend properly. And she’s stupid besides. She’s not good enough for you!”

This was so near Noatak’s opinion on the subject that he didn’t know whether to be gratified or disconcerted. He looked at her indignant face, and instead of either, he simply felt pleased. He didn’t know why and didn’t bother thinking about it too much. After all, he’d always felt that guilty sort of satisfaction when Taraka worried about him. It made sense that he’d feel it over this, too.

“She’s not even very pretty,” Taraka added, distinctly sulky.

Noatak smiled.

“And imagine what Dad would do, if he found you wasting time with a girl when you could be waterbending.”

“I _was_ waterbending,” said Noatak.

Zianka had vanished entirely by the time Yakone stepped back out of the tent. Noatak could only hope he hadn’t seen her on his way in.

The next few days passed unremarkably enough. Their father didn’t mention the forbidden fraternization—and with a lowly healer, too! He seemed just the same as always. Noatak shrugged the whole business off; he couldn’t tell what Taraka thought about it. She kept her face blank of anything but agreeable compliance around their father, and her heart and lungs told him nothing in this matter. Even bloodbending had its limitations, though Yakone would never see them.

Almost a week later, Taraka was dutifully attacking Noatak’s liquid shield when their father walked out to oversee them. Neither sibling faltered. Noatak kept pouring water into his shield; Taraka only increased the number and speed of the ice chunks she was hurling at him. He could scarcely see her through the obscuring water—he’d have to find a solution to that—and caught the blurry twist of one of her hands just in time to dodge a whip slashing under the shield, and take hold of it before it curled around his ankles.

“That’s enough,” Yakone said. Noatak waited the second it took Taraka to lower her hands, then let the shield slosh to the ground. “Excellent work, Noatak. Taraka—”

Noatak felt, rather than saw, her brace herself.

“You’re making progress. Picked up some tricks from your friends, eh?”

Confusion briefly replaced Taraka’s default expression. “My what?”

“We don’t have friends,” Noatak said, equally puzzled. Then his face cleared. “Oh, you mean what’s-her-name, the girl who came by last week? She wasn’t here for Taraka.”

His father’s pale eyes turned to him, narrowing. Before either could speak, Taraka interjected,

“We didn’t know her. She’s just some healer.”

“She showed up out of nowhere while I was practicing. We told her to go away,” said Noatak. “She wanted me to teach her our waterbending, or something.”

“As if some village nobody could learn what _we_ know,” Taraka said contemptuously. The angry disdain in her voice and face seemed very real.

Yakone studied them for a moment; then, to both siblings’ astonishment and concealed alarm, he burst out laughing, clapping Taraka’s shoulder.

“That’s my girl,” he said. She blinked. “Looks like both of you are just about ready to try your luck in the city. We’ll go hunting this weekend. There’s one more technique you’ve got to practice. If the two of you manage that, I’ll send you south this season.”

He strode back into the tent. Noatak and Taraka stared after him, dumbfounded, then at one another. Even just a few months earlier, they might have been cautiously optimistic at the sudden opportunity. As it was, each saw their own horror on the other’s face.

“Did you ever think he’d let us go early?” she said finally.

“No.” Noatak folded his arms. “I always said you were advanced for your age, but not … honestly, I figured he likes making you cringe too much to let you go a day before he needed to.”

“Me too,” said Taraka, unperturbed by his description of her. “I guess he doesn’t want to wait any longer for his revenge. He _is_ getting older.”

“Maybe.”

She bit her lip. “Do you think it’s going to be awful?”

“Yes,” said Noatak. He didn’t elaborate. “Just remember—everything.”

“I’ll try.”

He gave her a cold look.

“I mean, I will remember.”

“I don’t care what he’s planning. This is our chance. If we can get through this last thing, we’ll be out of here, forever. Three years earlier than we expected, too.” He paused, his gaze as fierce as hers was solemn. “Don’t mess this up.”

Taraka nodded. “I won’t,” she promised.


	5. Chapter 5

That night, Noatak dreamed.

He dreamed that he and Taraka were stumbling through the snow, running from a pale, massive, slavering monster. At the last minute, Noatak realized he’d never outrun the monster, not with Taraka’s slower pace holding him back. He shoved her at the monster, and fled. Her terrified screams followed him as he made his escape. He dreamed, too, that they were children again, waterbending snowballs at each other and shouting. He couldn’t see their mother but he heard her, clapping and laughing; there was no sign of their father. He dreamed that he couldn’t stop growing, just got taller and taller. When he turned around, he saw that Taraka had grown with him, though she was still a head shorter, and both their parents were shrinking, first Sura and then Yakone, until they disappeared into nothing. Taraka’s face turned solemn, tears rolling down her cheeks and flooding the village beneath them.

Hand-in-hand, Noatak and Taraka stepped over mountains, crushing hills and cities beneath their feet, until they reached a river. The river splashed around their ankles, and Taraka finally began to look cheerful again, giggling as they ran towards the sea. Even as giants, the ocean soon came to their necks, the powerful currents almost tearing them apart. Noatak wouldn’t let her go, though; he tightened his grip on her, and felt her nails digging into his flesh, clinging to him.

Soon enough, a raft—proportionate to his new size, somehow—floated by. He clambered on top of it, pulling Taraka after him, then both collapsed. Noatak peered around as well as could, but there was no one there. No pirates, no Water Tribe fleet, no blind mother or cruel father: just him and his sister and the boundless sea. He’d almost forgotten what it was to be happy, but it rushed over him, flooded him like a tidal wave. There was nothing quiet or contented about it; he felt as if he were drowning in joy. Noatak took two great gulps of air.

A glimpse of Taraka’s arm steadied him. He could see deep bruises where his fingers had been, and scratches from where their fickle element had sliced at her.

“You’re hurt,” he said, horrified.

“So are you,” said Taraka, sitting up. She lowered her hands into the ocean and when she pulled them out, they glowed brightly. She healed her arm ( _I have to be dreaming, she’d never heal herself first_ ), then reached for him. Beneath his tattered fur sleeves, he saw four scratches, shaped like crescent moons, and spaced in the same pattern as Taraka’s bruises, if closer together. Her grip on him had been as strong as his on her.

“Thanks,” he said.

Taraka just laughed and looked up at the sky. It’d gotten dark, somehow—it’d been noon before, but he was sure it would make sense if he thought about it—wait, no, this was a dream, it had to be a dream. The moon shouldn’t be full, should it?

Noatak gazed upwards, and the dark sky faded into a deeper blackness. He sat up, blinking around. Scraps of pale light came in through a narrow gap to his right, a few dim shapes emerging out of the uninterrupted darkness. There, that must be the small table where Taraka kept her scrolls and lotion, and those, their pile of weapons. He took a deep breath. The dreams were already receding into vague, disconcerting memory. This was reality: the deep bite of the air, the perfection of his bending sheltering the imperfect Taraka, his enemy and father sleeping a short distant away, beside his weak, traitorously unobservant mother. And Taraka—in the dark, Noatak felt, more than saw, her empty bedroll. He scrambled to his feet and ran outside.

Taraka stood a short distance away, staring up at the sliver of the moon. That seemed familiar, and not just from the night they’d plotted under his cliff, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

“Taraka,” he said, his voice thick with sleep. He tried again. “Taraka, you shouldn’t be out here. It’s too cold.”

“It’s your fault,” she said crossly, folding her arms. “You woke me up.”

Noatak recalled enough of his dream to pause in bewilderment.

“You were having a nightmare. You kept calling for me.”

“Right,” he said. “Uh. I’m sorry it bothered you.”

Taraka looked astonished. “I hope it wasn’t too bad?” she asked, as solicitous as she’d been irritated a moment before.

“I don’t remember much of it,” he said honestly. “You’d better go back to sleep.”

Taraka turned, then hesitated. “Shouldn’t you?”

“I have to go think. I’ll be there in a few minutes,” he said, and pushed her towards the tent.

“Brood on your cliff, more like,” she muttered, but obediently picked her way back, so he ignored her.

He kept a close eye on Taraka over the last few days. There wasn’t anything unusual about that, nor anything in her behaviour. She no longer smothered him in devotion, as she once had, but she was still unmistakably affectionate. Her face brightened when she glanced away from Yakone and towards Noatak, the hard, blank look in her eyes vanishing. She still fussed over him, too, pleased whenever he didn’t rebuff her, and behind it, visibly anxious.

On the last day—what was supposed to be the last day, at any rate—their mother sent them to the market. They were walking home when Noatak caught sight of a group of girls laughing over something. He recognized Zianka, pretended not to notice any of them, and glanced at Taraka. Her eyes were already narrowed under scowling brows, her lips pressed together.

Noatak leaned over and whispered, “You can’t really stab her in the middle of town.”

Taraka turned her head to frown up at him, then flushed and looked away. She gave an embarrassed laugh.

“I wasn’t going to,” she muttered. “I just—”

“Don’t like her, I know.”

She was still pouting, though Zianka and her companions were well behind them by now. “I’m not jealous.”

“Of course not. She’s just so _menacing._ And I’m completely helpless, so you have to protect me from her.”

Despite herself, Taraka laughed. “Well, not exactly.”

When they got home, they expected to find Yakone working outside, planning the final hunting trip; they were supposed to leave just after breakfast. Instead, their mother was hanging clothes by herself, mouth pursed into a small, preoccupied frown. It relaxed into a smile when she caught sight of her children.

“There you two are! I was starting to worry.”

“Taraka spent ten minutes haggling with the fish merchant,” said Noatak, setting his basket down, and bending the snow beneath it to carry it to his mother.

“Thank you, Noatak. Taraka, I’m glad you’re so prudent, but you don’t need to worry about money. We live quietly enough, but remember, your father still has a small fortune left from his years in Ba Sing Se.”

Noatak and Taraka exchanged a glance.

“I know,” said Taraka. “I just don’t like being cheated.”

“And you like winning arguments,” Noatak said. Taraka’s guarded expression turned wry.

“That, too. Where’s Dad?”

“He’s taken a bit ill, I’m afraid. Nothing serious, just a bad cough, but he won’t be able to take you on your hunting trip.”

Noatak stiffened, instantly suspicious.

“Oh!” said Taraka, sounding disappointed. It might even have been sincere; he rather thought it wasn’t. “Well, at least we’ll be able to stay and help with—”

“He wants you to go by yourselves.”

Noatak glanced from his mother to his sister. “Ourselves? Just me and Taraka?”

Sura frowned again. “Yes. He’s worried that our stores of meat are running low, with a bad winter coming. And he doesn’t want you catching anything from him, either, so he thought it might be better if you were gone this weekend.”

Noatak didn’t believe it for an instant, but he didn’t mind, either. It’d be best, of course, if they could have passed this last test today and had it over and done with, but still. They’d be out of sight and earshot, completely beyond their parents’ reach, for three days. Just him and his sister and the boundless tundra. Again, fractured not-memories tugged at his mind; impatiently, he banished them.

“I’ve set aside enough supplies for you.” Sura chewed on her lip. “Your father was sure you could manage together, but—”

“We’ll be fine,” said Noatak quickly.

Taraka’s mouth was curving into a slow, incredulous smile, her eyes shining. She barely covered up her obvious delight before their mother’s worried glance turned to her.

“You’re certain you can manage, Taraka?”

“Yes,” she said. “And Noatak won’t let anything happen to me.”

Noatak opened his mouth, then shut it again. Her blind trust both irritated and soothed him; he felt burdened by it, but he also felt as if a swiftly tilting world had righted itself, his place once again clear to him. So what if Taraka could defend herself? He was her older brother. It was his duty to protect her. It would always be his duty, his natural place.

In any case, there was no point to arguing about it. They could argue any time. Three days of freedom might never come again, until they escaped entirely.

Taraka and Noatak took turns changing in their tent, putting on their warmest clothes, packing their bags and grabbing the spears. Sura kissed them goodbye and wished them good luck; from inside the tent, they heard a dull, hacking cough. Noatak thought it sounded fake and shouted a loud farewell before heading off, Taraka in tow. His nerves ran high all the way out of the village.

He and Taraka both shot suspicious looks over their shoulders as the last tent faded from sight. Nothing happened to stop them, however, and Taraka’s carefully unconcerned look shifted to infectious excitement.

“We’re free for the whole weekend,” she said, practically dancing. “And it was Dad’s idea, too. Can you believe it?”

That _was_ weird. Noatak put it out of his head. “Hardly,” he admitted.

She seemed hardly to hear him. “No Dad, no Mom, no anyone. And no bloodbending!” Her bright expression faltered. “Or is there? Do I need to practice for next time?”

Noatak hesitated, but he didn’t have the heart to watch Taraka twist herself up over bloodbending, not this time, when she was already doing so well. Maybe—everything—had made him weak; maybe he just wanted to be quiet and content for three days. He didn’t really care.

“I won’t make you,” said Noatak, shrugging. “I think you’re doing fine, honestly. If I weren’t around, you’d be the prodigy.”

Taraka, far from offended, just laughed and shook her head. “We’ll have to hunt properly, and—oh! You shouldn’t bloodbend either!”

“Why not?” he demanded, feeling the familiar scowl tugging between his brows.

Taraka clapped her gloved hands. “Because it’ll be harder. It’s more fun that way.” She grinned over at him, her eyes fierce and cheerful, and he couldn’t help but break into an answering smile.

So much of the time, she seemed his natural counterpart, the La to his Tui, and he automatically thought of her as his opposite. Sometimes, though, he saw long strains of himself in her, or Taraka in him, and he was forcibly reminded that they were not immortal spirits locked into an eternal cycle, just brother and sister, with a few great differences and a good deal else in common.

His smile widened. “It would be more exciting,” he said. He cast her a sideways look. “I’m guessing you didn’t tell Mom you were thinking of ways to make things more challenging?”

She tried to look penitent, but just ended up laughing. “I might not have mentioned that part.”

They kept talking until they made camp, their conversation not merely prosaic but urgently so. It was early afternoon by then; Noatak walked around the tent to find Taraka sprawled out on the other side of it, making a winged spirit in the snow. He smiled, a little, and lowered a hand to help her up.

“How old are you, six?”

He caught the mischief in her eyes too late. She yanked on his arm and he tumbled down beside her. He could, of course, have easily used waterbending to hold himself upright, or to instantly slide to his feet, but he didn’t bother making the effort.

“I guess so,” Taraka said, giggling.

Noatak folded his arms behind his head and stayed where he was. After a few moments of silence, Taraka sat up. He wasn’t looking at her, and there was no change in her blood to tell him anything, but he could feel her mood darkening.

“I keep expecting to turn around and see him here,” she whispered.

“Me, too,” said Noatak. “But he’s not. Nobody’s here.” He glanced up at her, squinting; the sun was just behind her head. “Can’t you tell?”

Taraka frowned in concentration. Then her expression cleared. “You’re right. It’s just—”

“Hard to believe things could not be unpleasant for more than a few minutes?”

She snickered. “Exactly.”

Noatak waited until she’d gazed away, clearly distracted, and melted the snow under his hand. He bent the water right at her head, splashing her face and soaking her hair and hood. Taraka sputtered.

“There you go,” he said smugly. “Something unpleasant’s happened. Now you can get on with things.”

Taraka glared at him. Then, bending the water away from herself, she smiled again and laid back down. “You’re so thoughtful.”

After a few minutes of quiet, she said, with a note of reluctance, “We should probably start heating some water for dinner.”

“We can boil it,” Noatak replied lazily.

Taraka stretched, then cupped a globe of water in her hands and held it above her chest, absently playing with it. Noatak looked over at her. With no troubled anxiety or insincere agreeableness lying over her features, her face was peaceful. Her hands moved carelessly through the simple forms, the motions smoother, more graceful, than they ever were under Yakone’s eye. The steady beat of her heart was a soothing counterpoint to his.

Abruptly, he sat up. “What do you want to do in Republic City?”

Taraka blinked. She set the sphere aside. “When we get there? Find work, find a place to live—”

“No, not that,” he said impatiently. “Once we’ve made our fortunes and everything. It’s a big city, there are all kinds of opportunities.”

She met his gaze, then flushed. “Well, there is one thing—” Taraka’s eyes turned to the grey sky. “Do you remember that time Dad went to the Earth Kingdom and came back with a bottle of jasmine scent for Mom?”

“You want _perfume?_ ”

“It’s pretty,” she said, a little defensive. “And if we’re talking about a fortune, I don’t want a tiny bottle to keep for five years. I want the very nicest and I want to wear it every single day.”

“What else?”

Taraka’s lips pursed. “Powder and face-paint, like the ladies in the capital wear, and ivory beads in my hair, and—and a fountain!”

Noatak laughed, but he was already imagining finding all those things for her, and struck by how powerfully the idea appealed to him. He didn’t care about nice things himself, but Taraka had always loved them. And anything she wanted, he wanted to provide for her. He plucked at her sleeve.

“Don’t you want silk clothes, too?”

“Yes!” Then she considered. “It’s pretty close to the South Pole, though, so it might be too cold. Maybe linen or wool.”

“You’d think of that,” he said, amused.

“What do you want?”

“I’m … not sure. I want to do something important.”

“You don’t want anything—” she gestured— “small?”

Noatak thought it over. “A radio. I heard one when Dad took me to the capital—it was amazing, it sounded like they were right there. And it might be nice to go to a restaurant and not make my own food.”

Taraka, laughing, got to her feet and walked over to their pot, boiling the water with a twitch of her fingers. “As if you do anyway.”

As much out of sheer perversity as anything else, he helped her cook that night’s stew, ignoring the Yakone-sounding voice in his head that said the work was beneath him. They practiced their waterbending as the moon rose: a waxing gibbous, almost full—he thought it would be, on the third day, and felt a burst of anticipation. Taraka, always quick to spot an advantage, blasted him six feet back.

Noatak recovered in mid-air, using her water to slide down, land lightly on his feet, and toss sharpened icicles in her direction. Taraka dodged out of the way, spinning an undoubtedly razor-edged wheel of water towards him—he’d have to ask her where she’d come up with that, though it’d be more effective as a sudden attack then halfway through a duel. He was too fast for her to land another hit, and her defense too strong for him to break; he could have probably upset her stance with some ice, but he was tired, and magnanimously agreed to call it a draw.

Taraka pushed her hair out of her eyes. “That was great,” she said, still breathless. He dried off his leggings and shoulders.

“You did all right,” said Noatak.

“Thanks!” Taraka said happily, her cheeks flushed an even deeper red than they’d been during the mock duel, and her smile brilliant, as if he’d delivered overpowering praise. That was the problem with her—mere acknowledgment was well in excess of whatever dim hopes she cherished. Noatak felt, at once, contemptuous over her lack of vision, and angry and guilty over her pathetically bleak expectations, which clearly encompassed him. He’d done everything for her—but he knew, too, that he’d been less and less able to shield her from Yakone in recent years.

Much later, he would realize that the slow, unconscious withdrawal of his sympathies, and complicity in bending, had far more to do with it. Even then, their world had still been divided into everyone else, and the two of them. But Taraka had no reason to suppose that he would listen to her concerns—and he should have listened, Amon knew, she had been utterly right about their bending—or that he would even comprehend them. And he wouldn’t have known how to console her, had the thought of trying ever occurred to him. His final abandonment was not the beginning of his failure but the end.


	6. Chapter 6

They both went to bed early. Perhaps the jumble of his thoughts and plans, or the sudden switch from tension to easy contentment, released whatever restraints he had over the terrors at the edges of his mind. Whatever the cause, he had nightmares from the moment he drifted off until Taraka’s voice jerked him awake.

“Noatak. Noatak!”

He bolted upright. For a moment, he was simply bewildered; Taraka had drowned, screaming for him as she died, her battered corpse floating to the top of the sea. He could still see the blood smeared down her still-soaked ropes of hair, but here she was, kneeling beside him with her usual worried look, hair loose around her shoulders.

“But you’re dead,” he told her, eyes wild. He looked around them, making out the canvas of their tent. Their tent? But they’d been at sea, and—no, there was no water except for a few skins they kept with them for emergencies, and the sweat dripping down his face.

“Noatak, I’m fine, I’m right here,” she assured him.

Noatak, still half-panicked and gasping, stared at her. She placed a hand against his face, talking urgently. He didn’t hear, couldn’t pay attention to anything beyond the flesh of her hand, the blood passing through the veins and arteries. It was warm, alive—

With a hoarse sob, he reached for his sister, wrapping his arms tightly around her. Even beneath the thick fur of her robe, he could feel the infinitesimal motions of her living body, the expansion and contraction of her skin as she breathed, and with a little concentration, the dutiful activity of her organs. He closed his eyes.

_“Taraka.”_

Her arms slipped around his waist. Part of him wanted to push her away, but at the moment, it was a very small part. He heard-felt her shifting her weight.

“It’s all right. It’s all right,” she said.

“I know,” whispered Noatak, sufficiently recovered to feel a few flickers of shame, but not enough to relinquish his grip on her. Her fingers closed into fists and pressed against his back. Noatak, still more shaken than he would realize until morning, pressed his face into her dry, tangled hair. “I dreamed that you were drowning,” he mumbled. “I don’t know, maybe you weren’t, and it was something else that killed you. Your body was all broken and bloody.”

Taraka caught her breath.

“You were in the water, anyway. You kept screaming for me to help you, but I—I didn’t. And you died.” He didn’t know how to even describe what it was like. For years, he’d had nightmares where Taraka was taken from him, or lost, and those were bad enough, but at least he always knew she was alive, somewhere, and he could still find her and protect her. This time, she was right there—but not there, _that_ wasn’t Taraka, and he was alone, as he’d been in those first unremembered years before her. Yakone always said their purpose in life was to avenge him, but Noatak had looked down at his sister’s corpse and known that it was a lie. Alone, he’d wanted only to die himself. His fingers clenched in her hair, and Taraka winced.

“I’m not going to die,” she said firmly.

“Everyone dies.”

She laughed into his shoulder. “Well, not for a long time. And if anyone could find a way to make someone live forever, it’d be you.”

Noatak started to agree, then yawned. Taraka released her hold on him.

“You need to get more rest or you’ll be exhausted tomorrow.”

He nodded, sleepily compliant, and laid down. His eyes were too heavy to focus properly; he didn’t bother trying to track Taraka’s slight withdrawal, but automatically seized her wrist.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said soothingly. Her hands pushed at his shoulder. “Budge over, I’m not sitting here all night.”

Barely comprehending, he moved over, while Taraka dragged her sleeping roll over, next to his, and crawled inside. Noatak blew her hair away from his mouth. Taraka giggled, then yawned, and they both drifted off to sleep. He had a few more nightmares, not as bad or as deep as before, and each time, he woke to feel Taraka alive nearby, peacefully sleeping, her heart beating only a few inches from his. The nightmares were interspersed with his more usual, incoherent dreams, and he slept well, only really stirring when she crawled out of her bag the next morning.

Noatak, half-asleep, felt a distant, rising panic. As he was opening his eyes, he felt Taraka’s hand briefly grasp his shoulder.

“I’m starting the fire,” she said, and he mumbled something and went back to sleep.

When he woke up properly, he couldn’t recall any details about the last set of nightmares, and had only the vaguest memory of the terrible one. He remembered the reality, however, with perfect clarity—his weakness, clinging to his sister like a baby. He got to his feet, quickly dressing and pulling his hair back. He was fastening his wolftail when Taraka ducked inside.

“Oh, you’re awake,” she said, her usually even voice strained.

“Yeah,” said Noatak. “Did you get the fire started?”

Taraka stiffened. “Mm-hmm. I started breakfast.” He felt her hand move in his direction, then fall back at her side.

“I could have helped. You should have woken me up.”

Taraka paused. “You were tired. It’s fine.”

They ate breakfast in quiet almost-contentment. Neither mentioned Noatak’s nightmare or the test ahead of them; sometimes he thought, later, that they’d known it was the calm before the storm. Certainly he’d felt that there was something fragile about this brief, temporary respite; they hadn’t been as happy or comfortable in years, and neither of them wanted to ruin it. Only another day and three-quarters left, he thought, until they returned home, to the unfriendly or too-friendly eyes of the strangers they called neighbours—and to Sura, and Yakone. Looking up, he opened his mouth to say something—he wasn’t sure, anything—

“I lied,” Taraka blurted out.

Noatak stared at her. Then, despite himself, the corner of his mouth twitched. “You’re going to have be a bit more specific.”

“I—yesterday, at home—about Zianka.” Her lip curled.

“Zianka? The girl with the teeth?”

Taraka’s hand flew up to cover her answering grin. “Yes.”

“What, were you really going to try and stab her in front of everyone?”

“Of course not!” Taraka looked indignant, then ashamed. “I wasn’t going to stab her at all. But I _was_ jealous.”

Obviously, he thought.

“Oh,” he said.

Taraka forged on. “I knew what she was after the moment I saw her talking to you. Not just playing at it, either, at her age. Mom keeps telling me you’re going to want to spend time with other girls without your kid sister tagging along, and—”

“Wait. Mom?” He remembered the helpful, yet excruciatingly embarrassing, lecture his mother had given him last week, and suppressed a wince. She _had_ told him to send Taraka in afterwards. He’d figured Taraka would just get an equally awkward girl version of the same thing, and rather hoped she would. It was only fair that both of them suffer through that. He hadn’t supposed that _he_ would figure in Sura and Taraka’s conversation at all.

Taraka nodded. “You’re both of age. She said you might even settle down with your own family. Not yet, of course, but—soon. And she said that whether you’re interested or not, the older girls are going to be looking at you as … as a man, a future husband.” Taraka’s eyebrows slanted downwards, her eyes narrowing and her pout compressing to a thin, angry line. It was like seeing the ghost of himself lying over her face. Her fists clenched. “Then I saw Zianka there. She was trying to take you away!”

No, he hadn’t understood, after all. Of course, he’d been taken aback when it first struck him that Taraka was jealous of Zianka. Taraka had never been a jealous girl in any other circumstance, even with far, far greater cause for it, and there was no cause here. Still, she had a great deal of obstinacy in her passive way, with an acquisitive, possessive streak a mile wide. In the end, he’d simply figured that she resented an interloper. Likely that was true enough, but now he saw what had eluded him before. It was right there in her voice. She wasn’t just jealous of a much inferior girl; she was _afraid_.

“I don’t even like her,” he said.

“I know that!” Taraka leapt her feet, lowering her bowl into the empty pot and bending water into it. The pot began to steam; Noatak got up, silently adding his bowl. Taraka rolled up her sleeves, dug their mother’s soap out of one of the bags, and began to wash the dishes while he started packing up the rest of the campsite. “But I know you’ll want your own life someday, whatever Dad says. You don’t really care about his revenge, and it’s not like you’re always going to hang around looking after me.”

“What do you mean?” he said sharply.

Taraka cast an impatient glance over her shoulder. “D’you think I don’t know how much you’ve protected me? How much you’ve—everything you’ve done for me?” She went back to her chore, not so much scrubbing the dishes as scouring them. “I don’t expect you to do it forever. I know there’ll be someone more important eventually and you’ll start a life with them. You have your own path. I get that, really. But if you’re going to leave, it should at least be for someone special!”

“Taraka—”

She cooled the water and flung it away, shattering an unfortunate rock. He could feel her shaking; he could see it, too, from across the campsite.

“Not someone I could beat blindfolded with a hand tied behind my back! I’m not half as talented as you are and _she_ thinks she deserves you? Who does she think she is? How dare any of them try and tie you down to this place?”

He couldn’t help but imagine their positions reversed—Sura warning him that Taraka wouldn’t always be around for him to defend, young men his age courting her, trying to drag her out from under his protection, to shackle her to this miserable little village forever. Just picturing it, he felt a flash of rage. How _dare_ —

“Taraka,” he said, raising his voice to drown out anything she might try to say, “the only person who’s tied me down here is you.”

Taraka, carrying the pot towards the tent, froze mid-step, her breath catching. Noatak was about eighty percent sure she’d misunderstood.

“Yes, I’ve looked after you, as much as I could, and it’s been terrible. I hate it here, I hate the village and I hate Dad and I hate everything except you, and I would have left years ago if I didn’t have you to look after.” He strode around the campsite, gathering supplies, trying to move quickly enough to cover up his own unsteady hands. “I haven’t put myself through all this just because I never found anyone I liked better.”

“I don’t understand,” she said, her voice quiet again.

Noatak stalked into the tent. Taking a deep breath, he gathered their bedrolls and their last handful of belongings, then ducked out again. Taraka was still stock-still, arms around the pot. He took it from her and tossed it into the lightest of the bags.

“Don’t you get it? You are my _sister_.” The wind was beginning to pick up, snow falling lightly around them. He shoved her gloves at her, pulling his own over his fingers. “My little sister. It’s my job to protect you. It’ll always be my job—no matter what it takes. C’mon, help me bring down the tent.”

She opened her mouth, then shut it again, and just moved to the other side, pulling up the stakes. Once they’d folded it up and stuffed it in the last bag, she said stiffly,

“I don’t want to be a burden.”

“That’s your problem,” he snapped back. “I’ve stayed because of you, I’ve planned because of you. If we’re ever separated, it’ll be your fault, not mine.”

Taraka’s hands clenched and unclenched her skirt. “But Mom said—”

“Mom doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” Noatak paused. “Except healing stuff.”

She nodded, giving a slight, solemn smile, more relieved than reassured. He didn’t even consider returning it. They packed up the rest of their camp and left not long afterwards. The rest of the trip passed quickly; they avoided mentioning, or thinking about, anything disagreeable—such as most of their lives—and worked quietly together, the long silences more comfortable than not.

The hunt, on the last day, was only challenging because they allowed themselves to be challenged, but exhilarating for all that. They chose late morning, when their bending was weakest. Taraka, with little training in anything other than waterbending, still relied on spikes and razor-whips, and once when their aim missed, an ice-ramp that Noatak quickly converted into water, and then a rotating, diagonal wheel that knocked the enraged tiger-seal yards away. She took up the wheel, shifting it into a curved wall and shooting long, sharp ice shards at the animal’s exposed side, while Noatak hefted his spear for the killing blow. It was the work of a moment.

“Good job,” Taraka said absently. “It’s a big one. That should be enough to make Dad happy, don’t you think?”

Noatak wiped sweat off his forehead. “Dad? Happy?”

“Well, you know.” She stepped back, bending the blood away from her boots. “We probably won’t ever even eat the meat, will we?”

“Let’s hope not.”

Yakone was, of course, hardly pleased, but he seemed satisfied enough, particularly when both his children assured him that they’d practiced their bending. He still had a small cough, so Noatak supposed that he might have actually been sick.

“Do you think he’s okay?” Taraka whispered to him, after Yakone stamped out to argue with the village chief.

Noatak shrugged. He didn’t really care one way or the other, as long as it didn’t postpone their final test any longer. But Yakone, despite his myriad failings as a father and a human being, had never been inclined to self-indulgence. It was only a week later that he led them off on their last hunting trip.

Noatak had directed dire warnings at his sister over the last few days, but in reality, the possibility of failure did not seriously occur to him. He felt calm, determined, untouched either by Yakone’s urgency or Taraka’s fear. She was almost vibrating with it, the anxious beat of her heart and quick puffs of breath tapping an almost soothing rhythm in his ears. She didn’t need to worry, of course, but that was Taraka.

At first, the final, grand test consisted only of bloodbending polar leopards. It was nothing—ridiculously easy, even for Taraka, no matter how many times Yakone made them repeat it. It was evening by the time that she lowered her hands for the last time, the leopards scampering off.

Yakone nodded. “Very well. You’ve both mastered the art of bloodbending animals—as much as you ever will,” he added, with a sharp glance at Taraka. Noatak bristled silently. She was still younger than he had been when he managed psychic bloodbending. He was sure he’d be able to teach it to her eventually.

“Yes, sir,” said Taraka.

“But that’s not enough! These animals are dumb beasts, incapable of any serious resistance. The most spineless non-bender would be more of a challenge than these.”

Noatak frowned. He doubted that a single human—particularly a non-bending human—could really be as difficult as an entire field of enraged predators. He glanced over at his sister. Taraka, not even bothering to hide her expression, was staring at Yakone, dread creeping over her face. She’d always been better at predicting what Yakone would do. What was she thinking?

“Benders, and especially other waterbenders,” Yakone went out, “are even more difficult. Your will must be absolute to succeed against them. You can’t hesitate or doubt your power for an instant.”

Noatak and Taraka nodded.

“Tonight, you two are going to prove to me that you have it in you to bloodbend another human—that you’re true bloodbenders.”

His voice had risen to a triumphant pitch. Noatak and Taraka were, briefly, frozen in astonishment. Then they spoke at the same time.

“How’d you get someone for us to practice on?”

“But we can’t bloodbend _you_ , Dad!”

Yakone looked impatient, and addressed Taraka. “No. You will bloodbend each other. Follow me.”

Bloodbend _Taraka?_ Noatak was too surprised to feel anything else, numbly following his father to a wide, even stretch of tundra, though he heard Taraka’s gasp from behind him. Was she afraid? She’d never been afraid of him. He was her older brother, her protector, it was Yakone who threatened and hurt her.

Yakone moved them apart, ordering them to stand across from each other. Blindly, Noatak complied.

“Bloodbend your sister, Noatak.”

In that flash of a moment, memories paraded through his mind. He was snapping at her, seeing her flinch back—that meant it was _working_ , that he could keep her safe as long as he could make her do her part. He was dragging her away from the village, shouting at her, deliberately terrorizing her into putting a conspicuous effort into bloodbending, forcing her to practice, day in and day out, until he had some confidence that she’d be able to keep up with Yakone’s demands. He was digging his fingernails into her arm to silence her horrified protest when Yakone taught them to kill, he was—this was more of the same. He’d done what he had to do, to protect her. And he’d do it again.

Noatak didn’t hesitate. He looked straight into her wide blue eyes and concentrated.

Taraka screamed. He could see her body twisting, contorting in obedience to his silent, motionless commands. It didn’t seem real, somehow, any more than her corpse had seemed real in his dream. Only her voice did, ringing around and around his mind even after he released her and she collapsed onto the ground, silent but for sobbing gasps.

Somehow, Noatak had never imagined it ever happening to him. But it was only fair. He had bloodbent Taraka, and she would bloodbend him, and then they would be free. What if she wasn’t strong enough? He didn’t think he could fake being bloodbent, but he could help. He’d try not to resist, Noatak decided.

Taraka raised her head. Even with a few loose strands of hair falling over her face, there was something unsettling about her expression. She looked almost—betrayed? he thought, bewildered, but why—no, she was frightened, and with good reason. Everything was depending on her, there was virtually nothing he could do. He felt oddly powerless.

“Your turn,” Yakone announced.

Determination settled over her face, more of it than he had ever seen in her. That was good. Noatak braced himself.

“No,” said Taraka. Slowly, like an old lady, she got to her feet. “I won’t do it.”

Yakone and Noatak both stared at her, the former furious, the latter, no, he was furious too. How could she throw everything away now? After all he’d done, they’d done—and if he didn’t mind, why should she?—how _dare_ she give up now?

“Bloodbend your brother, Taraka!”

Taraka looked frightened, but resolute. At any other time, in any other circumstances, Noatak would have been pleased, seen a kind of strength in it. But there was nothing strong about turning coward at the last instant, nothing to be proud of, nothing—

“That felt awful. I don’t want to do that to _anyone_ ,” she said, with an agonized look at Noatak. There was nothing of her usual softness about her voice now; it was high and shrill. “I never want to bloodbend again!”

Their father’s face twisted into a mask of rage. “You’re a disgrace, a weakling,” Yakone snarled, one hand clenched as he strode towards Taraka. Noatak’s own anger instantly faded to alarm, all his old fears springing back to life. Without even thinking, his muscles tensed, his concentration sharpened; how many times had he held himself ready for this, just waiting for his father to give him cause? He’d imagined this moment hundreds of times, prepared for it; it felt more inevitable by far than Taraka’s failure.

Yakone strode towards Taraka. “I’ll teach you a lesson, you insubordinate—”

Noatak threw himself in front of his sister. In the same instant, he seized Yakone’s weak body with his mind, tossed him down to his knees, bent him backwards.

_“Stay away from her.”_

Yakone writhed under his grip. It didn’t matter. He’d threatened Taraka; he _should_ suffer.

Noatak had always thought bloodbending Yakone would be the ultimate challenge. It wasn’t. It was the easiest thing he’d ever done, as natural as breathing. Taraka, weakling or not, was his baby sister. It was just like he’d told her. It was his job to do anything to protect her. If he didn’t, he‘d be the failure, more than she could ever be, unless she didn’t need him any more.

“How … dare … you … bloodbend me?”

Speaking of spineless non-benders, Noatak thought. Nearly a decade of resentment was rising in him like steam out of a vent, the memories of more wrongs than he _could_ remember, wrongs he had not even dared think of as wrong. He wondered, idly, if there was any difference between bloodbending and making someone else bloodbend.

He didn’t think there was.

Behind him, Taraka was still shaking, as she had so many times, at so many things Yakone had done. Noatak scowled down at their father, wriggling like a fish under his power, and felt a surge of triumph.

“What are you going to do about it? You’re the weak one,” he said, not even bothering to strip the taunting contempt out of his voice. It was Yakone’s turn to suffer as he’d made them suffer, and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. “You always say bloodbending is the most powerful thing in the world—” He twisted Yakone’s useless hands for good measure— “but it isn’t. The Avatar is. He took your bending away. What could be more powerful than that?”

Taraka, her breathing harsh, took a few cautious steps forward. He was tempted to throw his arm out in front of her—but no. She was strong enough for this. It seemed right, after everything, to have Taraka at his side, Yakone at their feet.

“I made you what you are,” Yakone grated out, without a flicker of regret, or—or anything. “You’re mine!”

Taraka flinched. Noatak himself was taken aback, startled by something he should have seen all along. How could he ever have believed, even in some small, pathetic part of his mind, that Yakone’s approval had ever meant anything else? Of course he valued Noatak for exactly the same reason he disregarded Taraka. Noatak was the better tool; that was all.

In that moment, everything went ice-clear.

“We’re your _children!_ ” he cried, voice sharp with betrayal. “Not your tools of revenge!”

Their father didn’t say anything. Noatak doubted whether he even heard, really. He understood, now, that Yakone never would hear, would never be anything other than what he was—just rage and vindictiveness and hatred in a human shape.

Noatak turned to Taraka.

“Let’s go. We can run away from him, forever!”

After everything they’d been through, everything he’d done for her, today and every day before it, Taraka hesitated. “Run away?” she asked, faltering, and Yakone’s betrayal was _nothing_ to this. “But what about Mom? We can’t just leave her!”

“He was right about you,” Noatak said coldly. “You _are_ a weakling.”

Taraka’s eyes went wide and injured, but she’d be fine, she was always fine, she talked her way out of trouble, nodded and smiled and lied and caved to everything. Except—he had to get away, get out, she’d be fine, she’d just knuckle under like she always did, she was weak and selfish and a traitor, he had to get out. Noatak flung Yakone’s body away and ran away, not even considering the direction.

“Noatak!” she shouted. “Noatak, wait—don’t go! Please! Noatak!”

For the first time in his life, Noatak ignored her. He just kept running. The night got colder and colder, and he’d been too angry to think; he had nothing with him but his waterbending. His hands were numb and his thoughts were shattered. Even if he could have managed to hunt something, he neither saw nor felt anything else living. By the time he gave up on finding anything, he could hardly breathe through the cold. He was hungry and shivering; it took him three attempts to build his shelter.

Noatak curled up in a corner, against an uneven wall he’d made, and tried to think of anything but what had happened, or what might happen. Taraka would look out for herself. And he was alive, wasn’t he? He was fine.

It was hours later that he finally drifted off to sleep, Taraka’s screams ringing in his ears.


End file.
